© SCOTT SPORLEDER
A TASTE OF CANADA
A SPECTACULAR JOURNEY AWAITS WITH ADVENTURE CANADA
MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS By Jennifer Bain
How one expedition cruise company is now bringing together food, culture and local traditions to create understanding around issues that matter
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ogo Island salt fish cakes with mustard pickles were an easy sell. So was moose, braised and tossed with root vegetables and kale in fresh pasta one night, and then worked into barley soup with turnips, carrots and celery another. But chef Lori McCarthy was anxious about presenting pan-seared seal loin to passengers.
The cultural food enthusiast and founder of Cod Sounds, a culinary excursion company, need not have worried. That night aboard the Ocean Endeavour, adventurous eaters who ordered seal from the fledgling Taste of Place menu “cleaned their plates,” and McCarthy realized what a privilege it was “to get a chance to create a story from the beginning.”
The cut was carefully chosen for its tenderness, served with glazed turnips, potato purée and tart partridgeberry chutney. But even McCarthy’s fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians sometimes snub seal, scarred by badly cooked versions from when they were young, and she couldn’t predict how the international guests who were circumnavigating the island with Adventure Canada would react.
For Bill Swan, who co-founded the expedition cruise company and now focuses on partnerships and sustainability, it has always been important to “provoke thought” and “spark conversations” around everything from Indigenous relations and climate change to hunting and fishing customs and food.
“I wanted them to love it,” she remembers. “I wanted them to say, ‘The first time I had seal it was amazing.’”
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I’ve travelled with Adventure Canada and know that meaningful cultural exchanges are at the heart of everything it does. But while sit-down meals (and elaborate tea times) were wonderful, they didn’t necessarily speak to where
